A major concern during emergency operation is to maintain an overview of deployed Fire/EMS personnel and ensure access to safety critical medical information and next of kin contact information.
Currently most Fire/EMS personnel use printed cards with their information printed on the front/back. Some use common access card (CAC) style cards, which have information stored in a chip on the card. Both methods are insecure and costly.
Current methods for managing personnel accountability typically include:                a. When on duty, an emergency responder keeps an ID on his/her fire gear. Such a card is often referred to as a personnel accountability tag, in the emergency services industry;        b. When en route to an incident, the emergency responder places the ID onto a ring in the emergency vehicle, or sometimes there is an accountability officer on site at the emergency scene that collects the IDs. This is to keep track of all personnel entering/exiting the danger area, ensuring no one gets left, lost, or unaccounted for.        c. If an emergency responder is hurt, is missing, or unaccounted for the safety officer will retrieve the corresponding ID. With traditional ID's there is a risk that the ID may be worn out, for example due to environmental exposure, and therefore difficult or impossible to read. Cards that store the information may be damaged or may contain obsolete information. Find their ID from the safety officer, and hopefully the ID isn't too worn out to read.        
As such, considering the foregoing, it may be appreciated that there continues to be a need for novel and improved devices and methods for managing accountability of emergency responders during emergency incidents.